When a police department gets surplus M-16s, they do generally get converted to semi-auto.

In that mode, they are a very reasonable tool to put in the hands of a patrol officer to deal with active shooter situations, including mass public shootings or situations like the North Hollywood bank robbery. (Remember all the cops running to the gun shops looking for rifles?)

The 5.56 mm round used in an M-16 or AR-15 is a pretty light-duty round, for a rifle. It doesn’t have the raw penetrating power of a heavier round, like a 7.62×51 (.308), but it does give you more reach than a pistol round. That makes it good in both urban environments, where you are worried about bystanders behind walls, and more rural environments, where you might need the extra range. Your accuracy is much better in either case. Basically, cops want them for the same reasons I have one: a good quality, intermediate-power, accurate tool for engaging targets from short range (10 feet) out to a few hundred yards.

It’s worth remembering that a semi-auto AR is much less powerful than a 12-gauge shotgun, and pretty much every police car in the country has one of those. We’re just more used to seeing police shotguns.

More important than the tool is the training: what will the officers be taught about the appropriate time to deploy their rifles? If their training says the rifles only come out for active shooters, armed felon manhunts, and the like, then there really isn’t a problem. From that perspective, I would speculate that a patrol officer doing community policing is *less* likely to make a bad choice regarding using his rifle because he is (in theory) more in tune with his neighborhood.

Now, in the specific case of Boston (or California, or New York), I think they’re out of line, because their legislative bodies have decided that civilians shouldn’t have access to AR-15s, and law enforcement is a civilian function.

I may be incorrect, but it seems that many or most of those objecting to patrol rifles are not familiar with firearms. Patrol rifles are comparable to weapons that can be purchased by any citizen. Many departments do purchase civilian rifles off the shelf. I believe they are de-milled so that they can no longer fire 3 round bursts before being given to the police.

I think being so vocal in objecting to arming cops with the same guns that civilians can legally buy, we’re alienating all of the NRA types who should be our allies. If you want to see no knock raids go away, convince the NRA that they’re putting the lives of honest gun owners at risk by entering the wrong house too often.

@BamBam

Check out this article discussing modern police tactics regarding active shooters:

http://www.policeone.com/active-shooter/articles/1695125-Ohio-trainer-makes-the-case-for-single-officer-entry-against-active-killers/

And the responses by police officers:

http://www.policeone.com/police-products/firearms/articles/1697972-Solo-officers-vs-active-killers-Officers-speak-out/

It’s officers like the first response there that need a patrol rifle. Most of them will never be used – most cops never fire their guns. If a bad cop has a rifle, well by the time the police are shooting at you I don’t think it makes too much difference what they’re armed with. But when the shit hits the fan, if that one guy running into the danger isn’t armed appropriately, his life and and the lives of other innocents could be forfeit.

Sexual hysteria and the persecution it facilitates are a product of culture. These laws are not about protecting anyone, least of all children. They’re just part of the ever escalating crusade against rationality of which this is but one tiny aspect.

First, they are issued to first responders who can make a difference ( the best quickest way to end an active shooter situation is for the first cop on scene to immediately engage the shooter).

Only problem is that this rarely happens. There are many documented cases (Columbine and other schools, several mall shootings, etc) where the cops wait around for 30-60 minutes. Cops are simply historians, and don’t have the legal obligation to protect anyone (except The State) per many court rulings, including the Supreme Court.

I find it amusing that Boston keeps calling these military surplus M16s “semiautomatic rifles”, when in fact they’re machine guns (the Army doesn’t have semiautomatics).

Wrong. Military M-16s can be set to a semi-auto setting or a tri-burst setting (three rounds fired per trigger pull). M-16s have not been fully automatic for years. The SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) is the only fully auto light weapon in regular use.

Presumably any M-16s given to the police have the tri-burst setting removed, rendering them semi-auto, just like the Bushmaster you can go down to the gun store and buy.

Episiarch,

Any firearm that fires more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger is a machine gun. That is the legal definition, and it has been used to prosecute people when their guns doubled because of worn or defective parts.

I repeat what I said: an M16 is a machine gun. The M16A2 configuration (with 3-round burst) is, and legally always will be, a machine gun, no matter what parts are switched out. If you block the gas tube and weld up the magazine well to make it a single-shot straight-pull, it will still be a “machine gun” in the eyes of the law.

Wrong. Military M-16s can be set to a semi-auto setting or a tri-burst setting (three rounds fired per trigger pull). M-16s have not been fully automatic for years. The SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) is the only fully auto light weapon in regular use.

Presumably any M-16s given to the police have the tri-burst setting removed, rendering them semi-auto, just like the Bushmaster you can go down to the gun store and buy.

Don’t take this as an endorsement of police having high-powered rifles on regular patrol; I am merely correcting you. The last thing we should have is police, who are usually awful shots, with high-penetration weapons on regular patrol. Collateral damage would be huge when one of these fools starts shooting at Amadou Diallo.

Meanwhile, if a citizen had a true semiautomatic civilian model AR15, they’d be calling it an “assault weapon”.

Yeah we do, and the entire need for SWAT responses should be under public scrutiny, but that’s not really the topic at hand.

SWAT doesn’t come out in public unless some idiot political figure (be it a politician or a public bureaucrat) deems a show of force is necessary, just like in a third world dictatorship. They tend to do it to show how pro-active they are, and scaring the crap out of their citizens doesn’t bug them at all, which should really give pause to those same citizens.

But patrol officers don’t wear camo, don’t walk the beat with slung rifles and obvious body armor and tactical gear.

But they should have an effective rifle in their patrol vehicle in order to respond to active shooter calls.

Yeah the cops do have armored vehicles, and for the life of me I don’t know why they do. They don’t need them.

No, they have a police helicopter overhead. It doesn’t have rockets or cannons or missiles or bombs, it’s not air support, it’s air observation. If we are going to qualify an unarmed police helicopter as air support, we can start calling their police cruisers Armored Personal Carriers.

Cops have had rifles for as long as there has been rifles, and they certainly didn’t used to call us civilians.

The reference to the haircut I just don’t understand. A military hair cut is short hair on guys. It’s not special in any way.

What explains why we are the biggest prison state is the money behind the drug war, which also explains the militarization of the Police with armored vehicles and no knock raids.

But the drug war could evaporated tomorrow, and the police would still have a legitimate use for rifles in law enforcement.

The militarization is bad. But I don’t see how it includes rifles.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Interesting,” she said.

I see what you’re saying but they do have amored vehicles now and they do have air support on tap. I think that was the original point-that the line between the two has and is being ever more blurred. That’s why cops now refer to the rest of us as “civilians” (as if they weren’t civilians) and why they all seem to wear the military style haircut and the whole “us versus them” mentality. This erodes at least the purpose of Posse Comitatus. Maybe that explains why we are now the biggest prison state in the world as well.

You object to the recycling of rifles by government agencies?

They have legitimate uses for rifles. The same uses they have for handguns and shotguns, for individual officers to project force in the exercise of their duties.

A rifle is merely more effective in certain circumstances.

A removal of all laws concerning all of the victimless crimes would truly be a boon for society. But I don’t think it’s gonna happen.

Yes, their jobs are different, but their equipment is often very similar. A cop doesn’t wear camouflage, doesn’t ride in armored vehicles, and doesn’t have air support on tap. But he does ride around in vehicles, he does wears personal armor, he does have a radio, and he carries firearms.

Soldiers and Marines have handguns, why not object to that? The military uses shotguns as well.

A semi-auto rifle provides more hit capicity at longer ranges than a shotgun or handgun (25 to 35 yards or so). This is not a bad thing. Being able to hit their target with fewer shots means less stray rounds, and if the cop needs to shoot someone, chances are they aren’t shooting a prostitute or a drug user buying from an entrapment exercise, they are engaging an active shooter with gun fire in order to stop the threat.

That’s not a bad thing any way you cut it.

I agree, if you’re gonna charge the boy with posession, you gotta charge her with production.

My objection, which I thought was fairly clear, is to equipment that originally was issued to military ever being passed down to police afterwards.
I know that police have legitimate uses for body armor and radios.
(Perhaps if there were no victimless crime laws, the body armor would be less necessary ?). I guess I figured that the police standard for these types of equipment was (hopefully) not quite the same level as the military standard for similar -not identical – equipment. Their job requirements and duties are DEFINITELY not the same.

But still, that should not be considered a felony crime, or a crime as all. At the end of the day, this girl and her family were embarrassed and that’s a bout it. No rape, not theft of tangible or intellectual property, no physical assault. Merely embarrassing someone shouldn’t be a crime. If it is, then we could have had our moms and dads locked up when we were kids.

“If you don’t live in a glasshouse, then technically you should be able to throw as many stones as you would like, correct?”

Where in the world did anyone get the idea that it’s OK to throw stones in ANY house, whether built of glass or not? If I caught my kid throwing stones in my (non-glass) house, I’d whip his butt.

Ok, he insisted. Charge his damned daughter with a felony too, and see what he thinks about stringent application of stupid laws, then.